“Natura Obscura” is a major departure for Englewood’s Museum of Outdoor Arts, transforming one of the region’s most respected showplaces for static painting, sculpture and other gallery-friendly art objects into something more like a theme park, a family-fun attraction that’s full of lights, sounds, sets and storylines.
You don’t just go look at the offerings in “Natura Obscura”: You enter them and activate them, you feel the flowers and ogle the owls, you swing on a swing, view videos and read pithy passages about self-empowerment.
It’s a daring, big-budget move for the museum and one that is sure to change its public profile. MOA is terrific, nearly always, though it is often overlooked by folks who appreciate art but dismiss anything that happens outside of urban Denver or Boulder. More people should go to MOA — and this flashy, high-tech magnet is bound to attract them.
It’s not for everyone. Fans of the museum’s usual, fine-arts fare could find it a little basic. Its challenges come on a visceral level — it’s a dark and mysterious forest full of animals, trees, clouds and spirited woodsy beings. Visitors feel their way through, using their mobile phones to power things to appear and glow, to take on dimensional form, and to reveal text.
Definitely download the augmented reality-enabling app before you go.
The intellectual ground it does take on is probably just right for young people — sophisticated adolescents and open-minded teens and anyone beyond those age groups who might just have an awakening as they read affirmations like “We make our own path as we go” that dangle amid the artificial flora. Anyone who grew up on video games might thrill at being able to physically infiltrate this constructed fantasy without the barrier of a glass screen.
“Natura Obscura” is a secure, squabble-free zone, and that could be an alluring entertainment option for parents seeking a safe place to send their kids on a Friday evening. It’s like one of those haunted houses that pop up around Halloween, but without the severed heads and knife-wielding, homicidal maniacs.
Instead, visitors encounter, via a secret scroll, the character of “Yoburu, Spirit of the Plains,” an avatar for free thinking and unfettered ingenuity, “the builder, the maker, and the creator,” who expresses himself (or herself) using “the paintbrush of my thoughts.”
That will either scare you off or turn you on, and if that latter is true, “Natura Obscura” might make for a quick escape from the relentlessly stressful times we are living in right now. It’s a no-politics, pro-environment fantasy zone. That’s worth $20 and a drive down Santa Fe Boulevard right there.
The attraction — at MOA’s indoor space, located throughout several large rooms of the Englewood municipal complex — has its highlights. It was brought to life by the local production company Prismajic, which did some clever work converting everyday objects into layers of lush scenery. There are also impressive contributions from local artists who were invited to play along, such as videographer/animator Chris Bagley and Nicole Banowetz, best-known for her custom inflatables.
Grammy-winning Colorado recording engineer Mickey Houlihan helped to create a “custom cloud chamber environment” full of music and sound that’s set up in-the-round in MOA’s Sound Gallery. It’s 28 minutes long, though viewers can take in as much or as little of it as they want.
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The MOA also integrated some existing resources into the project. The museum builds its programming around changing exhibits, though it has a popular and permanent hallway display of collected odd antiques and unusual ephemera, which fits right in with “Natura Obscura’s” anything-goes sensibilities.
Plus, MOA employed the future-artist interns from its summer Design and Build program to assist with scenery creation.
The other reason to drop into “Natura Obscura” is to get a glimpse of where art — or, at least, a sizable portion of art — is headed these days. The exhibit is at the forefront of the “immersive art” movement that was kicked into high gear by Meow Wolf, the tremendously successful, interactive attraction that debuted in Santa Fe in 2016.
Meow Wolf, located in a former bowling alley, is a series of rooms that visitors meander through, looking for secret passages and various works of art while following a loose narrative about underground societies and government conspiracies. It’s become a multimillion-dollar operation and has plans to expand to other cities, including Denver, where it is building a ground-up headquarters set to open next year.
The public reception has inspired numerous knock-offs with experiences labeling themselves as “immersive” popping up across the globe. Generally speaking, they aim to be artist-driven but commercially popular, a change from traditional creative offerings, which tend to be artist-driven and commercially draining.
Their quality varies greatly, and their definition of “art” is extremely broad (and, one hopes, improving). But we can expect to see more of them over time; it’s the start of a new eram and “Natura Obscura” is helping to forge their path.
“Natura Obscura” continues through April 28 at the Museum of Outdoor Arts, 1000 Englewood Parkway, Englewood, which will remain open into the evening on weekends. Tickets are $10-$20 depending on the day of the week.
A few tips: Ticket discounts are available if purchases are made in advance online at aturaobscura.org. Also, the MOA will honor free SCFD days on the first Tuesdays in February, March and April.
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